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Oh, everyone likes cryptography and is reluctantly thankful that "blockchain" companies fund FOSS projects. But most people don't like "blockchain" because ther

Oh, everyone likes cryptography and is reluctantly thankful that "blockchain" companies fund FOSS projects. But most people don't like "blockchain" because there's a lot of good reasons to dislike it. My reasons can be summed up as: "public blockchain" aka cryptocurrency is toxic — it's horrendously inefficient in the name of achieving censorship resistance, so people are literally burning fucktons of energy to make perfect "crime currency" work. It has fueled the rise of ransomware (and extortion in general) and all kinds of scams. Meanwhile "private blockchain" is just like good old merkle tree/hash chain stuff, infused with hilarious/awful marketing fueled by cryptocurrency hype. Good talk about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCHab0dNnj4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCHab0dNnj4

mratsim 7y ago
- I wouldn't conflate blockchain and cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrencies are one (infamous) use-case of blockchain technology. - I agree that cryptocurrency turf fights are toxic - censorship resistance does not equate privacy. The main blockchains today are actually fully transparent. The perfect crim currency is cash which is almost untraceable. - The energy burn is to achieve distributed consensus. I don't think there is any distributed consensus algorithms that is not a tremendous energy burn today be it physical voting (transports, broadcasts, special machines, security, ...) or CEOs and diplomats flying around the world. - The energy burn is still concerning but Proof-of-Work is not the only way to solve the Byzantine General problem via economic incentives. You only need a "rare resource" that cannot be easily replicated to avoid sybil attacks (i.e. not an email address). That can be cryptocurrency (Proof-of-stake) or storage (Proof-of-spacetime) - I don't think you realize the scale of drug trafficking and other unsavory endeavors that use cash. - Mostly agreed on private blockchain but there are some industry-wide private blockchains that are starting to emerge (including UNICEF and FAO) with very interesting applications (identity of children refugees and managing food).
- floatboth 7y ago
  > Cryptocurrencies are one (infamous) use-case of blockchain technology None of the "other use cases" have been interesting in any way. > The main blockchains today are actually fully transparent So what? If the exchange between the cryptocurrency and real cash is not compromised, the only traceable thing is that some address which you don't know anything about got paid from another address which you don't know anything about. Again, real world ransomware mostly uses Bitcoin. > I don't think there is any distributed consensus algorithms that is not a tremendous energy burn today Anything that is not trustless, even physical voting, should be vastly more efficient. > Proof-of-stake […] Proof-of-spacetime Yeah, when did Ethereum promise a switch to proof-of-steak? Where is that again? Has anyone actually proven the security of any of these alternatives?

mratsim 7y ago

- I wouldn't conflate blockchain and cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrencies are one (infamous) use-case of blockchain technology. - I agree that cryptocurrency turf fights are toxic - censorship resistance does not equate privacy. The main blockchains today are actually fully transparent. The perfect crim currency is cash which is almost untraceable. - The energy burn is to achieve distributed consensus. I don't think there is any distributed consensus algorithms that is not a tremendous energy burn today be it physical voting (transports, broadcasts, special machines, security, ...) or CEOs and diplomats flying around the world. - The energy burn is still concerning but Proof-of-Work is not the only way to solve the Byzantine General problem via economic incentives. You only need a "rare resource" that cannot be easily replicated to avoid sybil attacks (i.e. not an email address). That can be cryptocurrency (Proof-of-stake) or storage (Proof-of-spacetime) - I don't think you realize the scale of drug trafficking and other unsavory endeavors that use cash. - Mostly agreed on private blockchain but there are some industry-wide private blockchains that are starting to emerge (including UNICEF and FAO) with very interesting applications (identity of children refugees and managing food).

floatboth 7y ago
> Cryptocurrencies are one (infamous) use-case of blockchain technology None of the "other use cases" have been interesting in any way. > The main blockchains today are actually fully transparent So what? If the exchange between the cryptocurrency and real cash is not compromised, the only traceable thing is that some address which you don't know anything about got paid from another address which you don't know anything about. Again, real world ransomware mostly uses Bitcoin. > I don't think there is any distributed consensus algorithms that is not a tremendous energy burn today Anything that is not trustless, even physical voting, should be vastly more efficient. > Proof-of-stake […] Proof-of-spacetime Yeah, when did Ethereum promise a switch to proof-of-steak? Where is that again? Has anyone actually proven the security of any of these alternatives?